The Teatre Nacional de Catalunya (TNC) is impressive. This is because of its façade, controversial and admired at the same time, something very typical of the city of Barcelona and especially its architecture. Ricardo Bofill’s sketches made it the building it is today. The firmness of Josep Maria Flotats, its founder and first director, did the rest.
“A theatre of all, for all and at the service of all.” This was Flotats’ motto almost thirty years ago. It is difficult to try, but the most difficult thing is to achieve it. The current director, Carme Portaceli (València, 1957), is a disciple of Fabià Puigserver, the great scenographer without whom another theatre in Barcelona, the Lliure, would not be what it is. And like her mentor, she is a daring, non-conformist and rebellious person. This is also how her works and programming are.
The new season is dedicated to the “margins”, a space in which we find those who live individually or collectively outside of conventional social norms. They do not always place themselves on these shoulders of their own free will, but rather have no other choice. Especially to women, even more invisible than them.
In the summary of the 2024-2025 programming, Portaceli adopts the phrase of the North American feminist Kate Millet when she defends that everything personal is political. It is in these margins that they try to hide poverty or everything that makes power uncomfortable. And it is precisely these realities that the director of the TNC wants to highlight. This is not a new concern. On the façade, he has placed a motto that summarizes his perspective on life but also what he wants this theater to have: “Una porta al món”. [una puerta al mundo].
–Do you consider theatre as an instrument to combat prejudice?
–I think something important is happening in our society, which is that people read little and, moreover, little fiction. This implies very little dreaming, when dreaming is necessary. People are hyperconnected but they have never been so alone. The simple fact of coming to the theater is already a revolution against loneliness. Being together is already part of the ritual: coming, queuing, being together and entering another world when the lights go out. It serves to value speech, feelings, reflections on the human being… All this is a richness. When we consume culture, we feel better.
– Actor Sergi López was recently asked if theater could be apolitical and his answer was no, because he believes that politics “affects us all.” What is your opinion?
–Everything is political. The fact is that sometimes people confuse this with parties. Apolitical has always been very dangerous. The Francoists always called themselves apolitical.
When you consume culture, you feel better
The director of the TNC cites an example. She explains that if we talk about one of the classics of Catalan theatre, “Terra Baixa”, which she directed with her gaze last season, what we see is not a love story but a 14-year-old girl sitting on the lap of a 30-year-old man with whom she ends up living and sleeping. What we are talking about is a situation called abuse, he emphasizes forcefully.
Portaceli has been artistic director of the TNC since September 2021. Previously, she was the director of the Teatro Español in Madrid. So you know well what it is like to have to fight with the Public Administration. With the same vehemence with which he describes his passion for his work, he also expresses the patience needed to deal with contracts, deadlines, calls for tenders and the enormous quantities of requests for documentation.
–When he talks about bureaucracy, he is particularly vehement. I dare say that he even gets angry.
–I always say something jokingly, but I don’t think it’s so joking: Francoism, fascism, Nazism didn’t end art. Censorship didn’t succeed either. But bureaucracy could destroy art because it imposes a series of things that are contrary to creation. If my teacher, Fabià Puigserver, had been forced to make a scenography a year before carrying out the work to meet the requirements of the tenders, I’m sure he would get up and leave.
The sets of a theatre like the TNC can be very spectacular. Almost as much as the spaces in which a huge amount of materials used and recycled for many works are stored. Hats of all shapes, from Victorian hats to move to London to the different shapes of the famous Panamanians. The entire wardrobe is inventoried, from vests to coats, from business suits to pajamas. It is a way of recycling, saving and being more sustainable. “They are inhabited clothes,” Portaceli sums up, showing some coat racks with an order that would make Marie Kondo envious.
The large warehouse, because of the space and the quantity of material, is called “Ikea”. The name suits it perfectly. Dozens of suitcases stacked in an order that allows us to see the passage of time and fashions, from wooden suitcases to cart. Pianos that work and others that, when they no longer work, are tuned so that they can be used equally. From a harp to a motorcycle, through bicycles of all kinds, fireplaces from different eras, tables, cabinets, doors, windows… All the structures you can imagine on a stage are probably here.
The TNC is one of the largest theatres in Europe and not only because of its size. The main building, shaped like a Greek temple, houses the Gran Sala, with 870 seats, and the Petita, with 450. There is also a third, more sober one, which is the one that Sergi Belbel asked to open last Wednesday, ‘Hamlet. 02’, a tribute and at the same time a demystification of the famous Shakespeare character played by Enric Cambray who excels in the role.
–This theater is often compared to the National Theatre London.
–Yes, they can be similar. We both have the vision of reaching the general public even if our exhibitions are much longer. Outside of here, they envy us for that. The rest of the European theatres try to extend but do not exceed 15 days. In terms of themes, we can resemble the one in London but also the Belgians and the International Theatre in Amsterdam.
Among this year’s programme, a play directed by Portaceli herself and adapted by Anna Maria Ricart stands out. It is “Anna Karenina”, a co-production with the KVS of Brussels, the Teatro Nacional Sao Joao of Porto and the Théâtre Nanterre-Amantiers (Paris), whose protagonist is Ariadna Gil. It is the one that the Barcelona public is eagerly awaiting. It will premiere on 21 November and will last for a month at the Sala Gran. The show will then go on an international tour and the Catalan adaptation of Tolstoy’s novel can be seen on stages in Brussels, Zagreb, Paris and Amsterdam.
The challenge of the new season is to surpass the 132,000 spectators of the previous one and to open our eyes once again to this world that claims itself at the door of the TNC through cycles like this year’s one that will be dedicated to Palestine. Because when it seems that there is almost nothing left, culture is still there.
